The board of Frontier Communications has created a new committee that among other duties would weigh any possibilities for “strategic alternatives” in the words of a regulatory filing on Wednesday, installing the former chief financial officer of Sears Holdings to lead it.

Based in Norwalk and with an operations center in New Haven, Frontier offers broadband and TV service in Connecticut and 28 other states, with the company among the larger employers in its home state with more than 3,000 workers at last report. Frontier lost $643 million last year, with revenue off 6 percent to $8.6 billion.

Late last year, the board scrapped a retirement plan committee and created a finance committee to oversee the company’s capital structure, as well as consider “strategic alternatives” for Frontier and its shareholders, a phrase often taken to signify the exploration of a sale of assets or an entire company.

Multiple outlets reported last year that Frontier was considering selling off portions of its broadband territories nationally, as it worked to reduce a debt load of more than $17 billion and simplify its operations.

The new finance committee is led by Rob Schriesheim, the former chief financial officer of Sears who runs Truax Partners today advising investors in large companies undergoing transformations. Frontier’s board is chaired by Pamela Reeve, with Frontier paying the Massachusetts technology industry veteran nearly $400,000 last year of $2.2 million in compensation for all its board directors.

In its annual proxy to investors published Wednesday, Frontier noted the departure last year of a third of its senior-most executives. The company attributed the exodus to its scrapping bonuses in recent years coupled with a plunge in value of its stock, with Frontier company now emphasizing cash incentives rather than stock-based compensation in an attempt to retain those who remain. Frontier’s compensation committee is led by Virginia Ruesterholz, a retired former executive vice president of New York City-based Verizon Communications.

Despite Frontier shares dropping precipitously last year, the broadband provider awarded CEO Daniel McCarthy a $1.1 million increase in his compensation to $7.1 million, including assumptions on the value of its shares in future years. Frontier shares were down another 6 percent on Wednesday afternoon to under $2.10, with the issue trading above $7 on an adjusted basis a year ago.

Frontier estimated a drop in McCarthy’s actual “realized” pay to under $3 million, based on the actual performance of its stock last year, and noted that he had made less than 40 percent of the total compensation for which he had been eligible the past three years.

The company used the $7.1 million compensation figure, however, to calculate a pay-ratio requirement under Securities and Exchange Commission rules that disclose the median pay of rank-and-file workers. With the median Frontier worker making $77,000 last year, McCarthy total estimated compensation amounted to 93 times that of the company’s median pay.

Frontier has yet to replace on a permanent basis its former chief financial officer Perley McBride, who made $2.9 million through August last year before leaving Frontier to become CFO of Cox Communications in Atlanta. As a privately held company, Cox does not make public the compensation received by its executives.

For a third consecutive year, Frontier will run its annual meeting for shareholders as a webcast, with the event scheduled for May 7 starting at 10 a.m. Mutual fund giants BlackRock and Vanguard are the company’s two largest stakeholders, owning more than a quarter of Frontier shares outstanding as of the second week of March.